Don’t worry, though- I’m not going to turn this into a wedding blog. Mostly I just want to share my wedding bouquet with you because it was a super fun DIY craft adventure that I did, and I’m really proud of it!

I inherited a crazy crafting gene from my mom that makes anything including glue guns, ribbon, sewing, or yarn sound like an amazing adventure, so I thought wedding planning would be a great place to employ it (which is how I also got sucked into spending about a hundred hours in the past week working on our DIY wedding invitation also, but it was totes worth it).

We’re getting married on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and because we’ll be outside in nature, I can’t carry real flowers (ironically, because they may pollinate the area and mess up the original eco-system. Can’t have random hydrangeas growing on top of the mountain…), so I decided to try my hand at making a bouquet.

I found this tutorial at Christmas, and used it to make cute bows for the presents I gave my family (which were a huge hit), so I immediately thought to try it out for my bouquet. I bought 4 different fabrics in the same color family and got to work! I didn’t take pictures of the process of creating the flowers, but you can check out the tutorial if you’re interested in trying it out yourself.

The stems were a little challenging to figure out, but I ended up thinking up a pretty simple solution that I think worked pretty well. Here goes:

So I started out with wire, floral tape, super-skinny dowels, and a glue gun (plus some scrap fabric I had left over).

I took the wire and looped a circle in the middle with two long ends coming out of either side (it doesn’t have to be pretty- it’s getting covered up.).

Then, I glued the circle to the underside of the flower with my glue gun, and covered it with an extra scrap of fabric (to seal in the wire and stick the fabrics together).

Then, I placed the end of the dowel in the middle of the circle and bent the wire ends opposite directions, winding them down the dowel to secure the flower.

Then, I covered the wire/dowel with floral tape. I made sure to wrap it several times over the ends of the wires, so they wouldn’t poke me.

And that’s it! Here’s what the flowers look like from the bottom:

And here’s the finished product!

So I’m still trying to decide how I want to cover the stems (ribbon, burlap, etc) for actually carrying it, but for all intents and purposes, it’s pretty much complete. 🙂

So anyway, I hope this inspires you to some craftiness or general happiness.

My parents are pretty wonderful, for about a million reasons. First of all, they’ve been married for almost 30 years. That’s quite a feat. And they’ve managed to raise 3 (relatively) normal, functioning children, stay in shape (read: insane shape. My mom has a 6 pack.), and remain best friends. Amazing.

One of the other main reasons I think my parents are awesome is that they are HILARIOUS. Maybe this won’t seem as funny to other people because you have to know them to know how quirky and silly they are- my dad loves a good punny joke (His go to is the one about the toilet robbery at the Police Station: “They had nothing to go on.” — get it?? Hardy har har…) and my mom is obsessed with any Lucille Ball physical comedy. She’s seen every episode so many times she can quote it, tell you the full title and probably air date, but every time Lucy gets herself stuck in the freezer or lights her fake nose on fire, my mom cries with laughter and spills her coffee.

So- back to my story.

Well the backstory is that my parents have been in the process of moving out of their house (which they built when I was 4) in order to move to Charlotte for my dad’s new job. This process has been going on since the summer, but they’ve been living in an apartment while searching for a house… Which means little by little things have been leaving the “High Point House” and traveling to Charlotte. But they’ve been in High Point on weekends cleaning and doing yardwork- keeping the house up for showings.

Kit and I went to High Point for something a few weekends ago, and were headed back to Raleigh and were hungry. I grabbed a bowl of cereal (one of the only staples that I can always count on finding), and Kit made some chicken fingers out of the freezer. He wanted some dipping sauce, so mom read out his 2 choices- caesar dressing and A1 sauce. He chose A1 and when he went to pour it on his plate, a slimy, greyish brown, very thick “goop” came out of the bottle after a hard shake.

We were all suspicious of this chocolate-looking liquid, but mom assured him that it had “just been cold in the fridge” and there was “nothing wrong with it.” So he ate a little and said it tasted a little funny.

Meanwhile, my dad had grabbed the bottle and snuck away to the corner of the kitchen, where he was inspecting the label. He caught my eye and engaged me for some help, saying, “Um… does this say… August 2007!?!?!”

We laughed hysterically and gave mom all manner of shit for trying to kill Kit… blahblah… hilarity etc.

Skip to today:

I had an awesome text-convo with my dad (and then my mom), this morning. Here is the transcript:

Dad: “Your Mother says the apple sauce is always brown like that on the top. Should I eat it?”

Me: “hahahahahahahahahaha DON’T DO IT!” (after reading that message, I was literally crying hysterically, trying to read it to Kit without laughing.)

Dad: “It taste a little funny :)” (I think he meant “tastes.” I also think that makes it funnier)

Me: “She’s after the life insurance! Kit is citing the ‘A1 incident of 2011.'”

Dad: “Hum, I do have a lot of insurance.” (“Hum.” Hahahahahaha. I’m still laughing.)

Dad: ” 😀 😀 😀 😀 :D” (I love when parents use emoticons. Classy.)

Then my mom starts texting me and this is what hers say:

Mom: “It wasn’t much brown just a couple of spots…”

Mom: “This is a conspiracy.”

Me: “Yes, it is. You are trying to kill both of our husbands.”

Here is a telling photo of my parents from last Christmas. Note my mom’s matching pj’s, my dad’s plaid pants (with pockets, for his pocket knife, not pictured), and their general air of silliness from the awesome gifts we (my sisters and I) put in the stockings we made for them. 🙂

So I know I usually use this blog for general hilarity and the occasional social justice rant, but as I was wrapping some gifts just now and listening to “O Holy Night,” I was struck by some beautiful words and a very powerful thought.

These days, I’m much more into the idea of “family” as the reason for the season than going and sitting at a candlelight service, and I admittedly have not joined a church here in Raleigh. My spiritual journey has become more about me working on myself on my own than rather than congregating with a group of people. I have a lot of issues with things that are taught in “the church” and haven’t found a place where I feel like I can wholly commit to the teachings as of yet. And I’m not entirely sure that I will. And I’m okay with that.

However, I am continually struck by the teachings of Jesus. I don’t claim to be perfect or to even believe in all of the stereotypical “Bible” teachings, but he had some awesome things to say about the world and how people should act.

Back to “O Holy Night.” It’s one of my all time favorite Christmas songs, hymns, etc. In general, I just think it’s badass. But here’s something that gets overlooked a lot that I’d like to bring to the attention of my 4 faithful readers. 🙂

Have you listened to the 3rd verse lately? If you haven’t- here’s a refresher:

Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.

I think this is the most powerful verse in any Christmas song. It outlines both what I love about the teachings of Jesus and what I find incredibly wrong with “Christianity” today.

In his name all oppression shall cease.

That is HUGE.

I mean, really. ALL oppression. All of it.

If we all lived that way, how much better would the world be?

We’d stop judging people for their “lifestyles” and how they’re different from our own. We’d be able to have relationships with people who are different and not feel the necessity to pass judgment on their decisions. We’d all be able to live in harmony, knowing that we’re all worthwhile and no one has some “better” or “right” way to connect with their version of God.

The world would be more peaceful and a happier place to be.

Like I said, I don’t claim to be perfect- but every time I hear this song, I’m compelled to be kinder, more tolerant, more open, and more loving to those around me.